As some of you might know, we’ve been planning on several very sweeping changes lately, and I’d like to outline all of them and how they will or will not affect any of you.

Database changes:

We’re in the process of changing up the general style and relationalism of the db with the help of our new database administrator dev, TheFlyingSpaghettiMonster. What this means to you: The game will execute actions faster and we’ll be able to do more with less code which means more productivity. The con to this is that it’ll take a bit to rewrite the code to use it, but more on that later.

Rollover changes:

We’re going to be changing rollover fundamentally so that not only do you not get kicked off chat, you won’t be kicked off the game period. I’m of the opinion that it’s useless breaking your session just to update some data in the db and make backups. So, we’re simply going to prevent you from doing anything (you’ll get a message saying rollover is in progress). So, there will be rollover ‘warnings’, but you will be able to stay on and chat during.

Design changes:

As we were already going to be rewriting the site’s entire code to allow for the new database setup, we were hoping to really change up the way the game is coded to be more efficient, to be easier to code for, to make everything more or less awesome. I had been pressing to use Ruby on Rails to do this, which is an application language made for rapid application development and convenience of coding (see ForumWarz for a working example of the neatness), but as it turns out RoR is a bit picky and overall too much work to adapt to and use. So, instead, we’re going to be (possibly, still waiting for coding team approval) rewriting the game code to be entirely based on one page (this excludes chat, which we will also finally finish soon >.>).

Anyways, the upside of this is that all the code is contained to one page, which means system changes are easier to make, and none of the hassle needed to make new pages is needed. Adding a new function to the game will be as simple as using a tool I’m designing to add a new section to that page. It makes compression of functions, it means we can use a single style sheet that’ll be easy to adjust (no more silly bugs caused by Fyr’s setup >.>). But that’s not all. We’ll also be able to keep all our functions on one page, and we’ll be able to see where we need functions the most. In addition, we’re going to start implementing AJAX calls into all of the interfaces- no more page loads for every little thing, saves bandwidth and what not. This is going to make javascript being enable pretty much a necessity, but it basically already is. We may or may not code in support for JS being disabled, we’ll see. But, I think the best aspect of this, is that we can refactor all of the existing code to be much better and have more features than it used to. To be honest, alot of our early code by me and Fyr is very sloppy and inefficient. It’ll be nice to have a consistent code base from now on.

And so, I’ll end this blog. I think very soon we’re going to make a new Soul Raver Show, so I’ll recap some of this on there. If we can, we’re going to get Sukie and FSM on, since they haven’t been on a show yet >.>

Poor little blog, neglected and alone, no one ever looks at you anymore. I don’t think it’s very fair to keep the blog so sad and alone, so I’m going to give it a small update, just to keep it happy.

So, what’s been going on? Our coders have been perfecting the code (in between bouts of laziness) and have been working on such features as rollover.

The rest of the team have been focusing more on the content side of things. It’s already been decided how many quests there will be and we’ve written up over half of them (there are some gaping holes in a lot of them so I can’t really say any of them are strictly complete, but it’s a start).

EMD has been busy with NaNoWriMo all month so she hasn’t been able to lend her powers to us useless men, but seeing as she’s Finally written around 50,000 words, she should be joining us again quite soon. –Edit– apparently not, see comments.

And… That’s about it.

If you want me to address something specific, just ask in the comments or something.

Hey all, it’s Bizkut here, and I finally decided to hax the db and make myself a dev on this here wordpress thing. But I’m sure you all don’t care about that, but rather want to know what’s up with the game. So, the current state of things:

:UNIONS! GROUPS! WHATEVER! So yeah, they’re in the game. Whilst there is not currently a union chat channel, you can currently apply to a union, leave a union, or create a union. WOOH! If you are a LEADER of a union, you have oh so much more you can do. You can Accept/deny users, add players to a union whitelist, remove players from a union whitelist, remove members from your union, or decide to allow/block all applications. I’m slacking off on doing a few other things, because with avid union switching in the games future, I know I have to come up with a good system to allow for unique ranks/titles/abilities in multiple unions. So fear not, if I’m not coding, I’m thinking.

Beta CONTENT is coming along, however slowly. There is a good amount of art thanks to our dear emd, and a good amount of content thanks to the collaboration of The Almighty Creator, Enemy Lasagna, and emd, with a weee bit of input from Satan and I.

Possibly a little sumthin’ sumthin’ for Halloween. >.>

So yeah, that’s about all I can think of right now. Have fun, you guys!

Yeah, it’s been a while since we’ve posted anything in here. Just thought I’d give you a brief update on what’s going on.

Good news is that we now have three coders on the team, Satan, who has assumed the role of head coder; Fyriole who rose from the dead and is now an active devster (we hope); and newly joined Bizkut who has been a devster for little over a week, maybe two weeks.

As you can tell, chat is getting a lot of nice features added to it, satan is making sure all the bells and whistles are in working order. With the speed of three coders, or at least two and a half, things may come sooner than previously predicted. No promises though.

But what are the rest of us doing you ask. Well, I can’t give too much detail away, me, tac and emd are working on a lot of beta content. Working out how the quests will work, thinking up interesting mechanics, trying to make sure things still make marginal sense… All that wonderful stuff.

I am planning to get most of the work finished before the end of the year but as the past has taught us, anything could happen.

The clatter of chairs was resounding as the officials sat down at the immense wooden table. After a moment of stifled coughs and shifting chairs, the room was again silent. Then came a pounding of a gavel upon the wood.
“Today we call to order PTA meeting number three hundred and ninety-eight,” said a stern looking official at the head of the table.
A wizend man to the right of the stern official continued, “We will be discussing the construction of a new college in Sweden. It has been a point of hot debate, but due to the… rather ‘illustrious’ state of the nearby colleges, we decided last meeting to provide slightly cheaper education to our high school alumni. Now, the only problem is the lack of tangible funds to construct the campus. We already have a million dollar deficit, so…”
A silence, as the attendees pondered the implied question presented by the wizened man.
“Any ideas?” he finished.
More silence. Suddenly, a hand rose from the crowd.
“Since bake sales and fund raisers are a bit too… lowbrow for this district, why not capitalize on those annoying coupons?” said a meek old woman.

The ‘coupons’ this old woman discussed were actually the remnants of a simpler time in Sweden. During the last world war, the town of Sweden used coupons to trade and buy items from each other, saving their money away in safes for harder times. This created a mini-economy amongst the citizens as they bartered off their remaining goods. The coupons eventually lost value in the community and were simply discarded. A local ecologist noted the strange behavior of Sweden’s local qwerzogs; quite frankly, they collected them in droves. Other wildlife picked up the habit and kept the multitude of coupons. These relics are highly sought after by museums and WWII enthusiasts, and if portrayed as incredibly rare, could be sold for millions of dollars.

The meek woman continued after the initial silence. “What I mean is, to make money off of those, collect them from the citizens at a coupon stand on the grounds of the campus. Since our town is big into hunting, they’d take them off the corpses of the wildlife and give them to us. We’d remove the animal problem AND build ourselves a college!”. The idea was met with a resounding applause and a general air of approval. One man’s stifled cries of “But won’t we risk the extinction of the Qwerzogs…” were ignored as the claps continued.

“We have it then! we’ll start next year after the college plans are finished. This concludes the meeting.”

The Fields, 1989

“BUT WHAT ABOUT OUR KIDS!?” The sound of several angry beekeepers rose from a crowd.

The local bee farm had decided to shut down. Sweden was already suffering financially and it didn’t need any more honey then it already had. The bee farm was one of the biggest in California, but its honey was of a lower grade then other bee farms in the country. Therefore it exported very little. Sweden’s local government also had restricted the capability of the farm’s production, and the citizens of Sweden had voted 93-7 to lower the price of the honey. Hundreds of bee keepers worked at the farm, because there was nowhere else to work in the area. In the state of economic hard times, being fired could mean losing everything.

“Please clean out your lockers and leave. I will officially declare Buzzy Bee Farms shut down. We will release the bees, and tear down the factory. Thank you for your hard work and dedication to the company. Every employee will receive their last payment in the mail tomorrow. Goodnight.”

“My god, I’m gonna have to go live in the freaking woods. We can’t afford to move!” said a sobbing woman in the crowd. Others tried to comfort her, but they knew they were in the same boat.

The Beach, 1989

The cold, unforgiving waves beat down on the coast of Sweden as a boat came to rest in the docks. Several sailors leaped off onto the wooden dock and started to slowly walk back home. They seemed rather jolly, if tired. “Gee whiz, I can feed my family for a year!!” exclaimed an eager, young fishermen to his older friends. The waves continued to beat down on the barnacle encrusted boat. On the side you could barely read the faint red lettering: “U.S.S SWEETY”. The captain then stepped off the boat, brushing off his coat and putting his hat on the nearby rack. He sat down on the edge of the dock next to a nearby man. With a sigh he pulled out a large stogy and lit it up with his lighter. The captain leaned over to the man, tapping him on the shoulder. He quickly pulled out a large writing pad and a pen. The captain began to recant the last trip to the man, as if expecting him to document it.

“Write this down for me, will you? Our last trip was bountiful, but too bountiful. Us crab fishermen bring in about one hundred a day, but we easily brought in thousands! The ship nearly tipped over. Even after we had them aboard, they thrashed and even killed each other in some sort of crazed frenzy. I sense that the migration of the sea crabs has been extrapolated due to increased breeding. What could be causin’ it, you never know. I saw some suspicious corporate barges heading out to sea. Maybe they be dumping chemicals?”

The man ripped off the sheet and handed it to the captain. The captain threw his stogy into the nearby trash bin. He bought some fishing line and a candy bar from a man behind the counter of a dock general store, jumped into the boat and slowly coasted away back into the open sea.

The Mountains, 1989

An unforgiving wind sped through the rough, weathered mountains. The trees on the mountains swayed loudly, but otherwise the mountains were silent except for the occasional qwerzog call. A small river rushed on at the base of the mountains. At the top of the largest spire, a man sat alone at the edge of a dark cave.

The young ecologist pulled out a small tape recorder. “For the record,” he whispered,”Qwerzog activity is unusually quiet. I have come to investigate the activity of these strange quadrupeds. How they came to these moutains is seriously beyond my understanding. It is strange that they appear slightly before the destruction of these same mountains. Maybe they don’t realize the danger within these big yellow vehicles?”. Suddenly a clatter came from below. The ecologist stopped the tape and produced his binoculars.

Two qwerzogs were fighting below, near the stream. Strangely, due to the topography of the land, some of the ocean feeds into the stream, creating a peculiar infinite loop between the stream and the ocean. The qwerzogs fell into the water, continuing to fight. One of the qwerzogs slightly changed form, and with a burst of energy struck down the other qwerzog. He took a few sips from the stream, again changed form, and crawled back into a nearby cave.

The ecologist produced his tapes again. “Again: how the creatures came to these mountains is a mystery. Maybe by inspecting the body of a freshly slayed qwerzog I can learn the origin of these ‘freaks’ of nature.”

After quietly and surely making his way down to the base of the mountain, the man examined the body of Qwerzog. Again, he produced his tapes. He whispered to avoid detection. “This qwerzog appears to be of mountain lion origin. It also shares the skin of a snake and the horns of a goat, as well as other mixes of genes that were possessed of the previous wildlife. I wouldn’t know for sure, but I’m pretty sure that the water in the str-AAAAAAAGH!”. A qwerzog jumped from the nearby cave and struck down the ecologist. The qwerzog sunk its fangs into his back and then slowly dragged him into the cave.

I’m back from the Netherlands to see that my fellow devsters have been hard at work in my absence. They’ve figured out how the event will end (finally) and both satan and fyriole have been doing their fair share of coding wizardry.

I know it’s been a slow month, and I’m very glad so many of you are sticking with us. I can promise you all that before the end of the month, the even will end and my shiny new relic will be up. I recommend that you cooperate in figuring out the many combines of my relic, otherwise you will take quite some time to find it. And don’t forget to message me the moment you find it.

In other news, Holland was great. Discworldian was the hostess of the dutch meet, she made sure that everyone who was meant to be there was accounted for. I was around for before and after the meet which added up to a whole week which I might as well let you know what happened.

Thursday: Arrived in Arnhem, met up with Discy and her house mate Ifor (he forgot his KoL name so we call him Ifor as in, I forgot). Both of them are good people. They showed me around Arnhem and generally had a good time with them, also got acquainted with the cute little things which are Discy’s rats. Slept in a hostel which turned out to be a 30 minute hike away and was on the ONLY HILL IN ARNHEM. Go figure.

Friday: First day of meet, met some dutch KoLers, some for the first time, others I had met in KoLondon. All of them where bilingual except for me, they had fun watching me try and fail to understand dutch, so a good day all round. Slept in a hotel with two other KoLers, we ended up juggling until 4AM.

Saturday: Went to Nijmegen, spent the first part of the day playing general games in the dungeons of a game shop (like any good nerd should) then sat in the park with my fellow KoLers, did some more juggling and recorded the show with all of them contributing.

Sunday: Went to the Hague (or Den Haag) to meet up with another KoLer who we never actually found in the end, spent the day at some sort of festival, we hung around up until the point that it became a trash heap and decided the leave before the seagulls got nasty. Ate some falafels for the first time, their like vegetarian kebabs, I ruined mine by accidentally putting too much hot sauce on it and pretty much destroying my tongue. By the end of the experience, I had to throw it away, though after that, the mexican restaurant we went to was a walk in the park in terms of spiciness. Said goodbye to a lot of people since the meet had ended. Slept at Discy’s place due to running out of reservation at the hotel and not planning far enough ahead to get the hostel more reservation.

Monday: Discy took my to the sweet shop in town, bought a lot of delicious aniseed flavoured bears amongst other things. Didn’t do too much as discy was shattered, helped her pick out songs for her radio show on tuesday, and by help her pick out I mean suggested songs to her and have her say they were overplayed, and by that I mean axe. Slept at the hostel again, yay for 30 minute hikes up hill…

Tuesday: Went to Amsterdam with Zwing AKA Tonks, wondered through a very fun museum called NEMO which featured such things as giant bubble making and some other strange devices, I accidentally got electrocuted there, it took me a while to figure out why my hand was twitching and in pain. Wondered through the red light district (naturally) and past the brown cafés to get to a very good pancake restaurant which was near the Anne Frank house.

Wednesday: Went to the Hague (Den Haag) with Discy and Ifor to go to a concert of an artist that discy loves, before hand we walked around the Hague, I ate the most delicious herring that I ever dangled in front of me. The concert was a lot of fun once it got going with the main act, the drummer was extraordinary, he really knew how to keep the energy up and had a lot of fun doing it. It was a long cold trip back to Arnhem, and then a lonely walk through the cold misty road (uphill) to the hostel, I may have caught a cold walking up there at night, but meh.

Thursday: Said my final goodbyes to Discy and Ifor, bought a lot of aniseed confectioneries and started to get home. Slept in my bed which is in my room. I thoroughly enjoyed my trip and I can’t wait until the Glasgow KoL meet.